They are the nine players the Oakland Athletics received for Nick Swisher and Dan Haren in the past month. The trades are nothing new for Billy Beane, the Athletics’ general manager. He and Larry Beinfest of the Florida Marlins have made more of these trades than any other general managers, swapping high-priced, established players for affordable-but-unproven prospects.

Other clubs have made such trades, but not with the frequency of the Athletics and the Marlins.

Two years ago, the Marlins traded Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell to Boston for Hanley Ramírez, Aníbal Sánchez, Jesús Delgado and Harvey García; and Carlos Delgado to the Mets for Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit and Grant Psomas.

Even the Yankees have made such deals. A year ago, they traded Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson and received Humberto Sánchez, Kevin Whelan, Anthony Claggett, Ross Ohlendorf, Steven Jackson, Alberto González and the only major leaguer in either deal, Luis Vizcaíno.

When a team decides to trade an established veteran for prospects, it will identify the teams it thinks are the most likely trading partners and make a list of prospects in those teams’ organizations. Teams interested in the established veteran will find out which prospects the other team likes and decide which ones they are willing to trade.

“I was going to cut the best deal I could,” said Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, discussing the Sheffield trade with the Tigers. “We put him in the marketplace and worked out the best deal on the table. We would’ve gravitated in any direction. You try to solve your needs.”

Pitching is everybody’s priority these days, and the Yankees acquired three pitchers for Sheffield.

“The Tigers were the most aggressive,” Cashman said. “It was a very limited trade market.”

Sheffield was coming off wrist surgery and also had a reputation for being difficult to deal with. But, Cashman said: “You try to work out a deal you’re comfortable with. You don’t do a deal you don’t think is a good deal.”

Sánchez, out all season after reconstructive elbow surgery, is expected to be able to throw in spring training.

Whelan (4-2, 2.98 earned run average) pitched in relief at Class AA Trenton last season. Claggett (9-8, 3.69) started 16 games and relieved in 16 for Class A Tampa. Both are prospects, Cashman said.

Of the three young players the Yankees obtained for Johnson, Ohlendorf relieved in six games for the Yankees after relieving and starting (3-3, 5.02) for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Jackson (4-8, 5.87) did both jobs for Scranton, and González batted .266 for Scranton and Trenton.

The Athletics traded Hudson and Mulder two days apart in December 2004. They acquired a young pitcher in each deal whom they expected to blossom into a good starter, but injuries have slowed the progress of Meyer, a 26-year-old left-hander. In three starts and three relief appearances for Oakland last season, he had an 0-2 record with an 8.82 E.R.A.

Haren, a 27-year-old right-hander, was the key to the Mulder deal. He won 43 games for the Athletics in three seasons and he cannot be a free agent for three more years. But the Athletics traded him anyway.

“This whole winter we’ve been gauging the health of our club,” Beane said. “We were injured last year. When we got into the winter, we weren’t optimistic it was going to be any different. If we stayed status quo, we weren’t going anywhere anyway. I looked at the club and at best we’d be a 72-to-81 team.”

So why, Beane said, asking his own question, would you trade the one person who is healthy and is your All-Star?

Photo

Dontrelle Willis was traded for several prospects. More teams are trading established players for inexpensive, unproven minor leaguers.Credit
Ray Stubblebine/Reuters

“He was probably our biggest asset,” Beane said. “We didn’t need one player; we needed multiple players, and Danny was the best shot at doing that.”

Asked how he decides what players he wants in return, Beane said: “It changes each time. It depends on your organization. When we were talking about Danny, we needed as much depth as we could get in the deal. When we traded Hudson and Mulder, we were a little more myopic.

“We focused on the two teams we did because each had a starter who appeared to be ready to pitch in the majors the next year. We were correct with Haren. Danny Meyer had some injuries that delayed him.”

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Beane said he graded himself on his trades. “You have to,” he said. “There’s plenty of people grading you even before the deal is announced. It would be foolish not to look back and see what we learned.”

During his outstanding career, Jack Morris did not fare well in balloting for the Cy Young award. He never won it despite having three 20-win seasons, and his best showing in the voting was a distant third. One year, when the American League had only one 20-game winner, his 19 victories earned him only a single third-place vote on the three-place ballot.

Morris was a better pitcher than he was a vote getter. His weakness has carried over to the Hall of Fame. In eight years on the ballot, Morris has received percentages of votes ranging from about 20 percent to about 40 percent. If his vote total last year had been doubled, he would still have fallen five votes short of election.

The question is why the voters have thought so little of Morris. He deserves far better. This is one member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America who would vote for Morris if The New York Times allowed its employees to vote.

One criterion many voters use in judging a player is his dominance. Was Morris a dominant pitcher of his era? There was no one more dominant.

In the decade of the 1980s, Morris was No. 1 in wins with 162 and in complete games with 133. Closest to him, according to Elias Sports Bureau, were Dave Stieb with 140 wins and Fernando Valenzuela with 102 complete games.

Expand that period by four seasons, from 1979 through 1992, and Morris becomes even more dominant. His 233 wins were 41 more than the next-highest total, Bob Welch’s 192. And Morris completed 169 starts. Valenzuela was second with 107.

There is more. In a 13-year stretch, Morris pitched 235 innings or more 11 times. He was the No. 1 winning pitcher on two World Series champions and another division champion. Then there was the pièce de résistance: the 1991 postseason.

Pitching for the Minnesota Twins, Morris won two games against Toronto in the league championship series, pitching the second on three days’ rest, then beat Atlanta twice in the World Series, making two of his three starts on three days’ rest and pitching one of the all-time classics, the 10-inning, 1-0 victory in Game 7.

In that game Morris induced Sid Bream to ground into a bases-loaded, inning-ending double play in the eighth inning, then set down the Braves in order in the 9th and the 10th.

Morris finished his 17-year career with a 254-186 record. Maybe voters hold his 3.90 E.R.A. against him, but this is one instance in which a pitcher’s overall production overshadows an E.R.A. and renders it meaningless.

Morris has six more chances on the writers’ ballot. That should be enough time for the voters to wake up and recognize what he did in a brilliant career.

Baseball’s Pitchmen

Lidocaine has joined flaxseed oil in baseball’s substance hall of fame. What Barry Bonds has done for flaxseed oil, Roger Clemens will do for lidocaine.

If Bonds ever makes the real Hall of Fame, his plaque should portray a vial of the flaxseed oil that he said his trainer gave him to rub on his body. If Clemens makes it, he should be depicted with a syringe of lidocaine, which is what Clemens says his trainer injected into him.

The manufacturers of those substances should make commercials with Bonds and Clemens offering testimonials. Use flaxseed oil and become a most valuable player. Shoot up with lidocaine and win a Cy Young award.

Barry and Roger — a pair of aces or a pair of jokers?

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page 85 of the New York edition with the headline: Putting the Quantity in Unknown Quantity. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe